Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1887-04-30
A BOYS VENGEANCE.
ID cstroying the Power of the Indian Tribe
Which Killed His Father.

He was a boy of fifteen, named
Joseph Brown, and his story is a re.
markable instance of l~ong-studied ven,
geance in one so young; but space will
allow me to refer to only two incidents,
says a writer, speaking of the war be-
tween the early settlers of Tennessee
and the Indians. His father had been
awarded some lands in the vicinity of
Nashville, for services in the rcvolu-
ton, and in 1888 he set out, with his
family, to settle upon them. Within a
few miles of Chattanooga his boat was
suddenly surrounded by about forty
Indian canoes, and in a few moments
his hcadless body lay at the bottom of
the Tennessee. His two oldest som
and four other young men were at
once murdered, and his wife and four
younger children made prisoners.
Joseph's captor was n young halt-breed
brave named Chia-chat-alla, who
spared his life that he might be the
slave of his mother, u degraded French
woman who had been brought up and
married among the Disadvantages, He
took Joseph to her cabin, and then re-
turned to the boat to secure his share
of the plumber. He had scarcely gone
when there appeared at the door of the
cabin Cutteatoy, the head chief of the
small town of Tuskegee, opposite Chat
tanooga, with a dozen of his warriors,
demanding the boy from the French
woman. He said the lad wa old
enough to notice every thing, and if
allowed to live would escape and
some day pilot there IN army to de-
stroy them all. The boy could not I'M
dcrstand his words, but he did his &C,
tons. A dozen knives and tomahawks
cleaned above him, but they did not
fall, for the woman sprang before the
boy, declaring now that he should not
be murdered, and saved his life.
For more than a year the boy was a
prisoner among the Chickamaugas, en-
during all sorts of hardships, but mean
while discovering all their hiding places
in the mountains. Then he was liber-
ated by John Sewer and returned to
his friends in South Carolina.
Now the youth thought himself old
enough to take a part in the bloody
drama that was being enacted every
where about him. He repaired to
james Robertson, who had military
command of the Nashville district, and
told him that he knew the secret fast
nesses of the river Indians, and could
pilot an army to their rear which might
destroy them. Robertson heard him
gladly, but shook his head, saying that
he could do nothing. The orders of
the Government were imperative that
both he and Sewer should act strictly
on the defensive, and under no clrcum-
stances again invade the Cherokee
country. Spain held Louisiana and
the mouths of the Mississippi, and was
in alliance with the Greeks and Chero-
KEGS. An attack upon them would
provoke a collision with her, and that
: the infant republic was not prepared
for, while all the wisdom and prudence
2 of Washington were required to avoid
another war with Great Britain. So
= for two years Sewer and Robertson
held their hands, while death lurked
beside every mans dwelling. The
farmer could not fell n tree, gather a
! crop, OF sit in his doorway without a
loaded rifle beside him. In a popula-
l ton of 7,0l0 in the Nashville district
l the killed were from sixty to seventy
S yearly. AT last, when some of the first
men in the district had fallen, the
, Nashville people rose, enrolled them
, selves, and demanded to be led against
: the Chickamaugas. Then Robertson
: gave way, and sending for young
| Brown asked him to find II route for
| an army through the woods to Nico.
t jack.
1t was more than u hundred miles,
C through a trackleSs forest where never
white nan had been, and behind every
: tree might Turk a Chickamauga; but
with two or three companions the
young man went and returned in safe
+ ty. By the route he had blazed a force
t of $50 men soon followed, and the rest
Il is history. The head chief of the
e Chickamaugas was killed, and seventy
G of his warriors, and their towns were
$ laid in ashes. -Harper'S Magazine,